Read Online Bitter Almonds by Laurence Cossé, Alison Anderson - Free Book Online

“She thinking with black no one seeing how she is fat!” She has just found a job and is making a good living. “She shopping, shopping, makeup, shoes, bags . . . Her room is so many things, looking like department store.” She wears things once and leaves them to be washed, “Madame Aubin she going crazy.”
    After a pause she says, “I writing very much yesterday.”
    â€œGood,” says Édith. “Let’s go over your name,
AMRANI
. Go ahead, write the beginning,
AM
.”
    With no model to copy from, Fadila makes a perfect
M
. Édith congratulates her and asks her to put an
A
first: “You know, the first letter of your name.”
    Fadila makes an
F
. She must have mixed up first and last names. In any event, she’s written the first letter of her first name. So now she knows how to single out the first letter of a word, thinks Édith, but if she’s honest she knows that’s not at all sure.
    But the fact that Édith has asked her to write
A
, the first letter of her last name, and Fadila has written
F
, the first letter of her first name, is troubling: it means she doesn’t know what the few letters she does know how to write are called.
    With the model in front of her Fadila can copy out her first and last names flawlessly.
    â€œSuperb,” says Édith. “Before you go, can you write
FADILA
for me in your head?”
    Fadila writes
FAILA
. Without the model she cannot tell which letter is missing. With the model, and a bit of effort, she can get it.
    Ã‰dith hands her the sheet where she did such a good job of copying out her first and last name, and says, “Soon, you’ll see, you’ll know them both by heart.”
    Â 
    Ã‰dith needs someone to take over from her, a literacy course where she can enroll Fadila. It’s just going too slowly; they’re not making any headway. Fadila has to be made to work every day.
    Above all she needs to have real classes, given by good professionals. Édith hasn’t known how to go about it. She’s been feeling her way, and hasn’t found either a method or the trigger.
    And vacation time is coming. At the end of July Fadila will be leaving for Casablanca to stay with a cousin. By the time she gets back, Édith and her family will have left Paris in turn. If she comes to work at their place while they’re gone, she’ll see no one. Come September, what will she remember of the little she has learned?
    Ã‰dith goes through the many literacy centers listed in the west of Paris. Fadila agrees to take a course when she gets back on condition that it is in the evening. During the day she is “working.” And her schedule is not regular, she explains to Édith—who had already noticed as much. She can’t commit to taking a class before seven or eight in the evening.
    Will she have the energy to go back out at night after a full workday? She’d found it hard the first time round. Fadila assures Édith that this time is different. She knows it was a mistake to drop out. She won’t do it again, she’ll stick with it.
    By the looks of it there is only one association that offers evening classes. Édith calls them up. The association has thirty years’ experience. It is run by volunteers. The classes are held in the parish hall in Saint-Landry, in the ninth arrondissement. Fadila can even get there on foot.
    She has the impression that that’s where she began, several years ago, before she gave up, but she doesn’t mind. The enrolment session will be held on Wednesday, September 7th, in the evening. During the meeting they’ll divide the participants into little groups, depending on their level. Édith and Fadila will see each other again before then, and they’ll discuss it again. “Inshallah,” says Fadila.
    She’s promises to practice while she’s in Morocco. She’ll go over what she’s learned, a